Essays in Critical Realism: A Co-Operative Study of the Problem of Knowledge (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Essays in Critical Realism: A Co-Operative Study of the Problem of Knowledge

The present volume was projected in December 1916, and the work upon it has been carried forward since then by conferences and correspondence. All of the essays here gathered were written specifically for it, and most of them have been redrafted several times during the progress of the discussion. The actual publication has been delayed, how ever, by the war work of one of the members of the group. Our belief in the value of co-operative effort has been fully justified to our own minds by the result for while the doctrine as here presented is, by contrast with the other well-known views, essentially that which all the members of the group have held for some years past, its final expression has been greatly clarified and its analysis sharpened by the elaborate mutual criticism to which our papers have been subjected. Especial credit should be given to Professor Strong and Professor Santayana, who, though overseas during this entire period, have kept up a constant correspondence with the rest of us, and thus shared with their cis-atlantic colleagues the fruits of their many years of consideration of the vexing problem we had chosen to attack. Professor Strong's book, The Origin of Consciousness, which contains a powerful argu ment for the epistemological view here also defended, came out after our essays were in practically their present shape. But several, at least, of us owe a peculiar debt', in the way of sharpening and filling out our analysis of the knowledgesituation, to the correspondence with him which preceded the publication of that book. Professor Strong, in turn, acknow ledges indebtedness to Professor Santayana for the principal conc'ept he employs in his analysis, that of essence. It seems desirable to mention specifically these debts, since most of the work of collaboration has necessarily been carried on by the other five members of the group, who were able to meet in person and correct one another's idiosyncrasies in oral discussion.

The doctrine here defended, while definitely realistic, is distinctly different from the new realism of the American group, whose volume, published in 1912, was a signal example of the value of co-operative effort in crystallizing and advertis ing a point of view in philosophy. Our realism is not a physically monistic realism, or a merely logical realism, and escapes the many difficulties which have prevented the general acceptance of the new realism. It is also free, we believe, from the errors and ambiguities of the older realism of Locke and his successors. To find an adjective that should connote the essential features of our brand of realism seemed chimerical, and we have contented ourselves with the vague, but accurate, phrase critical realism. Needless to say, the word critical has no reference to the Kantian philosophy, which should not be allowed to monopolize that excellent adjective. Our choice of this phrase was confirmed by the fact that several members of the group had already used it for their views - which, how ever divergent their expression, have been, we recognize, essentially the same.

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